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Can Custom Adhesives Soon Make Welding Redundant?

Here is a quick question for you – can you genuinely imagine a future where traditional welding methods as we know them today are replaced by a new generation of adhesive products? Admittedly, it is a difficult concept to wrap your head around. Nonetheless, as bespoke adhesive products continue to make important and enormous progress into key industries, the idea as a whole might not in reality be as incredible as it seems on the surface.

According to 3M tape suppliers, more brands and businesses of all sizes in the United Kingdom are switching to bespoke adhesive products than ever before. These are the kinds of industrial-type products that are produced to order, according to specific requirements. Technological progress has come a long way in the last decade and in many cases traditional welding can be completely removed from the manufacturing process and be replaced with a relatively simple adhesive product.

So what is quite clear already is the way custom adhesives have in a technical sense the potential to replace traditional welding. But when it comes to actually doing so, is this really going to happen? And more crucially, are there going to be real benefits of such a switch?

Vastly Improved Efficiency

It is perhaps worth bearing in mind that while conventional welding methods have the capacity to create truly fantastic results, they are not exactly the easiest or fastest process. Even when it comes to relatively simple bonds on modest scales, it takes a great deal of experience, skill and time to get the job done well. By contrast, use a bespoke adhesive product and the process can be considered quite to the contrary. If you were, for instance, to assemble a piece of metal furniture by making use of nothing but a high-quality adhesive…well, it’s quite clear which of the two methods would be easier and faster to complete.

Enhanced Material Compatibility

Another strong argument in favour of custom adhesive products eventually taking over is the way in which traditional welding techniques have always been relatively limited by which materials can and can’t be bonded together. Not only are specific metals entirely incompatible with one another, but for many reasons there are also a huge variety of materials that are extremely difficult to be joined directly with metal parts. That is, unless custom adhesives are used to get the job done as by removing the heat and harshness associated with conventional welding, it becomes entirely possible to bond any material with any other across the board.

Better Aesthetics

Some will always say appearance isn’t everything. But if you’re given the choice of two products that cost the same – one with a perfect finish and the other without – it’s quite likely that barely anyone would choose the latter. Traditional welding creates fantastic bonds, but at the same time it’s an aggressive and intensive bonding process that’s usually guaranteed to leave some mark on the materials used. Efforts are made to minimise all impact with extra finishing processes, but it’s usually quite clear to see where a weld has been made. Another crucial advantage of using bespoke adhesive products is the way they have no adverse impact on the materials to be bonded, leading to a genuinely perfect final result.

Improved Strength

Is it really possible that a bespoke adhesive product can produce a stronger join than hard-core welding techniques? Believe it or not, the answer is indeed yes. Try thinking about it this way – you are presented with two metal squares to be bonded. If you were to employ traditional welding, it would be a case of producing a strong bond around all four edges. This will without doubt produce a successful join, but it will be limited to the edges of the components. By contrast, if you were to bond the two squares making use of a bespoke adhesive, it would be entirely possible to spread the adhesive across the total surface area in order to join the entire thing. Therefore, the adhesive option would create a stronger overall join.

A More Cost-Effective Process

Last up, it is also worth bearing in mind the way industrial adhesive products are simply not in the same league as traditional welding when it comes to initial costs and long-term operational expenses. Standard welding equipment has the potential to cost a small fortune, as too can the trained manpower needed to operate it and the on-going costs associated with repairing and maintaining the hardware. Additionally, there is also the way welding uses a great amount of power that doesn’t really bode well for the brand’s carbon footprint. So not only are bespoke adhesive products much more cost-effective, but they could also be wonderfully environment-friendly.